Businesses and consumers use a wide variety of fixed and mobile wireless terminals, including cell phones, pagers, Personal Communication Services (PCS) systems, and fixed wireless access devices (e.g., vending machines with cellular capability). Wireless service providers create new markets for wireless devices and expand existing markets by making wireless devices and services cheaper and more reliable. Wireless service providers accomplish this, in part, by implementing new services, including broadcast services and multicast services.
Broadcast services enable all wireless devices (or mobile stations) to receive and view a broadcast data stream at a particular time. The broadcast data stream may be received by all subscribers that subscribe to broadcast services. Multicast services enable a select group of mobile stations to receive and view a multicast stream. The drawback to conventional broadcast services and multicast services is that the user of the mobile station must be available to operate the mobile station at the time of the broadcast or multicast.
For example, if a user wishes to view a one hour broadcast program that begins broadcasting at 8:00 PM, the user must be available to activate the broadcast services on the mobile station at 8:00 PM. However, if the mobile station user is unable to access or operate the mobile station at 8:00 PM, the user will not be able to view the broadcast program.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for improved base stations and mobile stations that enable a mobile station user to view a broadcast data stream at a later point in time. In particular, there is a need for a base station that may pre-schedule transmission of a broadcast program to a mobile station and for a mobile station that is able to store the broadcast program for later viewing.